But it’s more efficient to mass produce rather than have every country producing everything it needs. On top of that, some countries have inherent efficiencies in producing some items - proximity to resources for example.

You have the effect "mix vs sort" that shows that if you are very good making thing you are bad distributing them. So mass production is not as effective as local production if you account transportation externalities.

This applies to trade in all directions.

Funny how the US has been advocating for trade while it was "winning" (read, giving worthless papers for real goods). Since now we are hitting a wall (competing economies asserting themselves, and willing to be freed from the dollar), and since the US prsident seems to disregard, or not aware, of the massive advantage that the dollar means for the US economy, a trade war has been started.

This war will either be won by the US on the short term, or the dollar will be dismissed as international currency.

> giving worthless papers for real goods

> This war will either be won by the US on the short term, or the dollar will be dismissed as international currency.

Remind me what the Yuan, Yen, and Euro are backed by? Or are you saying that the world will go back to the gold standard?

Seems rather binary.

That's my opinion. For me this protectionism could be a good thing environmentally, and even socially if the tariffs income are well spend. For instance if we spend this tariffs in a UBI we could use this to change the economy to a more efficient and local economy.

Poorer countries struggle to look after their environment, if China's economy is slowing they may be tempted to burn more coal or dump more waste in their rivers.